There are three variants of the Mi 5 with slight differences in their hardware configuration. The base configuration has 3GB of RAM and 32GB internal storage, followed by a 3GB RAM and 64GB storage with slightly faster Snapdragon 820 processor. The third variant, labeled as the Mi 5 Pro, comes with 4GB of RAM and 128GB storage. What we got is the base configuration with 3GB/32GB combo that costs about P15,000 as sold in China.
Xiaomi has been known to make really great phones at an affordable price. The first time they officially entered the Philippines, the Xiaomi Mi3 sold really well that people were buying them and selling them for a higher price due to heavy demand.
The Mi 5 brings that same great design and solid hardware at an affordable price tag. The design was inspired from the bigger Mi Note that was released last year, only smaller, with just a 5.15-inch display. The glass front and back panel sandwiched in a metal frame is very similar to the Samsung Galaxy S7 especially with the tapered back and material design.
At only 7.24mm thin, Xiaomi managed to pack the Mi 5 with a lot of great features like the home button that serves as a fingerprint scanner, a 16-megapixel rear camera with optical image stabilization that does not show any ugly protrusion at the back like the Galaxy S7 and iPhone 6S, dual nano-SIM tray and a new USB Type C charging port.
The 5.15-inch display has a full HD resolution and 428ppi pixel density that looks gorgeous and very bright. The edge-to-edge glass display makes it seem that the Mi 5 is almost bezel-less along the sides. While other flagship handsets like the Galaxy S7 and LG G5 have much higher screen resolution (2560x1440 pixels), the 1080p screen resolution of the Mi 5 is still at par and even gave the handset an advantage by pulling higher scores in device benchmarks.
While there is dual-SIM capability, there is no option to expand storage via microSD card so you’re stuck with about 25GB usable space when you pick up the base 32GB model.
Very few flagship handsets these days come with USB Type C – the Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, OnePlus 2 and the LG G5. The Mi 5 adds to that very short list. Nevertheless, the device supports superfast charging, which translates to around 80 to 90 percent charge in just an hour for the 3,000mAh internal battery.
The Xiaomi Mi 5 runs on MiUI 7.2.5, which is basically a customized version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow. It is a simple UI but very nice and clean with tons of themes available in the App Store.
Xiaomi has once again made good on their promise of a really great-looking phone, topnotch hardware configuration at a very cheap price. If only they would release this device in the Philippines very soon. We’re not keeping our hopes up, though.
Xiaomi Mi 5 specifications:
5.15-inch full HD display @ 1920 x 1080 pixels, 428ppi
Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 quad-core processor
Adreno 530 GPU
3GB / 4GB LPDDR4 RAM
32GB, 64GB / 128GB UFS 2.0 internal storage
4G+ LTE Cat12, up to 600Mbps
VoLTE support
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth 4.2
NFC
IR Blaster
GPS w/ A-GPS, GLONASS
Fingerprint sensor
USB Type-C
16-megapixel Sony IMX298 PDAF rear camera w/ dual-LED flash, 4-axis OIS
4-megapixel front camera
3000mAh battery w/ Quick Charge 3.0
Android 6.0 Marshmallow w/ MIUI 7
144.54 x 69.20 x 7.24 mm
129 g
Black, White, Gold
source: philstar.com
